Rocacorba Daily

Thursday April 17, 2014

by CyclingTips - April 17, 2014

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Today we're going to keep the Rocacorba short and sweet as the Easter long weekend is upon us and everybody has gone riding. In today's headlines: Philippe Gilbert takes De Brabantse Pijl; Boonen's Ferrari gets new paint job; Why do cyclists ride in the middle of the road?; Texting P-plate driver hits cyclist: 'I just don't care'. Enjoy and have a wondeful long weekend.

Philippe Gilbert takes De Brabantse Pijl

Philippe Gilbert (BMC) took the victory in a tight sprint to win the 203-kilometer De Brabantse Pijl in Overijse, Belgium.

Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEDGE) was a close second with Tony Gallopin (Lotto-Belisol) taking third.

The day’s early breakaway was overhauled by a group of six – Nathan Haas, Pieter Serry, Mathias Brändle, Björn Leukemans, Mauro Finetto, and Simon Gerrans – with just over 40 kilometres remaining.

Although the move gained a lead of almost a minute, the peloton didn’t let them have more than that and reeled them in with eight kilometres remaining.

A series of attacks that shattered the peloton in the final kilometers with Wout Poels nearly staying clear on the final climb before Gilbert hit the front to lead out the final sprint and fend off Matthews to take victory just days ahead of the Amstel Gold Race.

“I had a good sprint to the finish, but Gilbert was just quicker today,” said Matthews. “The sprint sort of worked out. My plan was to lay off and then come off the wheels at 50 metres to go. But I didn’t quite have the legs to finish it off. It was a clean sprint, he clearly beat me.”

This is Gilbert’s second victory at De Brabantse Pijl, the first being in 2011 when he had a standout season winning 18 races, more than any other cyclist in the professional peloton.

Boonen’s Ferrari gets new paint job

In tabloid news of the day, Het Nieuwsblad reports that Tom Boonen’s Ferrari F430 just got a new paint job, complete with horses and dolphins.

A rough translation of the story goes something like this:

“In a runaway joke, painter Jeroom describes his latest project: With Tom Boonen’s permission he painted his bright red Ferrari F430 however Jeroom wished. The result is a turquoise sportscar which included an image of a Flemish horse and the face of Boonen himself, amid some dolphins. “If you do that, you might as well get it right. In the garage, they already call it the ugliest car they’ve ever seen”, laughs Jeroom.

Boonen was not involved in the development. “He could laugh. But best, because he has to drive around with it for a year. Fortunately for him, he rarely goes with that Ferrari on public roads”, says Jeroom.

Why do cyclists ride in the middle of the road?

In a piece featured in motoring.co.uk, cycling advocate Carlton Reid asks “Why do cyclists ride in the middle of the road? Because they’re allowed to”, he explains. Now this doesn’t mean much to us cyclists and we assume it’s obvious to all of you, (well, I hope it is), but the good thing about Reid’s piece is that it’s not preaching to the converted and is featured in one of the UK’s popular motoring publications.

Texting P-plate driver hits cyclist: ‘I just don’t care’

A P-plate driver who used her mobile phone behind the wheel 44 times before running down a cyclist near the town of Koroit, Victoria has been fined $4500 and lost her licence for nine months.

“I just don’t care because I’ve already been through a lot of bullshit and my car is like pretty expensive and now I have to fix it,” the 21 year old driver told police when she was questioned about a collision that resulted in a cyclist suffering severe injuries including a fractured spine which required surgery, a broken big toe and lacerations to his head and body. The victum was treated at Melbourne’s Austin Hospital.

“I’m kind of pissed off that the cyclist has hit the side of my car. I don’t agree that people texting and driving could hit a cyclist. I wasn’t on my phone when I hit the cyclist.”

Seriously … The Dolphin Ferrari and those comments by that Female driver re: cyclists ….

Is this a belated April Fools edition for today?

Gobsmacked.

http://www.cyclingTipsBlog.com cyclingTips

you never know!

krijamad

In between hitting the cyclist and going to court, she was also caught drink-driving.

Defence counsel Tony Robinson said that in the
time between the accident and this week’s court hearing Ms Davis was
caught drink-driving (.07) and received an infringement notice when she
drove her friends to the Gallery nightclub in Warrnambool.

He
said she decided to drive that night because she thought she was going
to lose her licence anyway because of the collision with the rider.

Faz

I was about to post the same. There is something seriously wrong here – nothing that public flogging and some jail time wouldn’t fix though!!

jules

it begs the question: what do you need to do to actually lose your licence?

Sean

What do you need to do to get thrown in jail? Bloody duck face selfies on her facebook should also attract a mandatory jail term :-)

CapeHorn

Go through a speed camera 46km/h over the speed limit. You don’t need to hurt anyone, but 150km/h on the freeway = no car, no licence for 24months (iirc) and the impounding of your vehicle.

jules

that’s only a licence suspension – even if it’s longer than what she got. at what point does someone say “you have proven yourself unfit to hold a licence”? suspending it for x months doesn’t do anything to correct fundamental problems with driver capability/attitude – they can just go back to where they left off when they get it back. it’s also well known that most drivers just keep driving while suspended.

Sean

She has form. I’m sure she’ll have her day in the sun before to long.

Justin

True you can’t operate for long in a local community with impunity. I imagine they would be outraged by the leniency of the sentence and the incredible lack of remorse shown.

http://www.happyfamilies.com.au/ Justin Coulson

Some of the comments at the Warrnambool Standard shed further light on this:

It appears that the charge had quite a bit to do with the outcome. The judge seems to have given quite a stiff penalty based on the charge of Dangerous Driving. A heavier charge of Dangerous Driving Causing Serious Injury is available and would attract heftier sentences, but police didn’t pursue it.

So it appears to be less a case of what the magistrate did in terms of sentencing, and more a case of what the prosecutors did in terms of laying a charge.

muz

If that’s the case the police have some serious answering to do, that’s ridiculous!

jules

the stronger the charge, the higher the burden of proof. in australia (lawyers can correct me here) there are limits on the ability to secure a conviction against a lesser charge when a higher charge for the same offence was not upheld. so what they seem to do is shoot for a safe prosecution, i.e. the lesser charge. securing a (any) conviction is important for the prosecutor – i’ll leave you to ponder whose interests that is best serving.

muz

seems like a pretty cut and dry case tho jules,

jules

of what? it’s not just proving that she hit the cyclist, it’s about the degree to which she failed to uphold reasonable driving standards and consciously chose not to. the higher charge imposes a higher burden on the prosecution to prove those elements. the defence can just throw peanuts at it (see Richard Pollett case) and say “you can’t prove it”

D-Man

Given her form, she’s likely to offend again. Not sure the specifics of the Vic crim code but would venture that a similar charge in the future (even under different circumstances) may well warrant a period of imprisonment. So perhaps the police are playing a long game here.
In the interim, put your faith in karma. She’ll get hers…

Mark

Previous form is not an indication of guilt. Merely that the sentence should be worse if proven guilty.

per09

Baldrick as defence counsel eh? Good luck with that!

Steve G

Boonen is on the coke again…

jules

if you look carefully you can see a tow hook protruding from front air duct – it’s his race car.

Steve G

It’d be hard to tow whilst he’s doing lines off the bonnet.

jules

that’s what groupies are for

Henry

I see Bling wasn’t upset by Gilbert’s sprint, but I wonder if someone racing A-grade at an open here came off their line as much as Gilbert, would the commissaires relegate them? Or if it happened in a junior tour race finish? I bet London-to-a-brick they would! Just saying…

Paolo

Didn’t look bad at all to me. Matthews seems to think so too. There was never any danger and enough space for Bling to go past Gilbert if he could.

900Aero

Hard to blame anyone in the break for not wanting to work with Boonen at P-R after looking at his car. If hes’ got enough money to custom paint his Ferrari, he can put his own nose in the wind.
Hopefully he won’t bingle the Ferrari as badly as his Lamborghini a few years ago.

Carn Soaks

Some of these 20 something drivers need a good belting to teach them they live in a world with other people. The guy who hit those 6 on Sth dowling two months ago, showed no remorse, NONE! Indicative of genXYZ! I dont know how my anxiety is going to display itself, but I’m scared for the next soccer mom who runs me into to bunch of parked cars near the SFS on the way to work.

Carn Soaks

Bling took no speed into that final corner and lost it to GilbyBear just because he had 2km/h better speed as he opened his sprint. Such a waste, he is going to turn into a great rouler. Amstel is waiting for Bling in the coming 5 years (if not this weekend).